However, his numbers looked considerably better on Coach James Franklin’s stat sheet after the game film was reviewed.

Smith was 13-of-27 through the air (48.1 percent) for 125 yards and two passing touchdowns, one rushing TD and no interceptions. Franklin, speaking at his Monday press conference, said that eight of the incompletions were expunged in his book.

“I always like to look at the overall stats that the press and the media keep, but I also like to do some internal stats as well, and look at the completions and the incompletions and what happened,” Franklin said.

“If you look, Larry was 13-of-27 for 125 yards and two touchdowns and also had a rushing touchdown. We’d like to get his completion percentage up, obviously.

“On the same hand, I did an adjusted statistic for him and he was 18-of-24, which is 75 percent. What I mean by that is he had three throw-aways, where he made great decisions, didn’t take a sack, got rid of the ball. So that hurt his completion percentage. And then the other thing is he had five drops. So if you calculate that in, he was really 18-of-24.

“I think they are pretty good statistics understanding that he didn’t take sacks, he didn’t create any turnovers and really put the offense in position to be successful and didn’t hurt the team. I think that’s more of an accurate statistic.”

Asked for a self-evaluation, Smith said on Monday that he thought he played “pretty well” in the opener.

“But I could have played better,” Smith said. “Some of those drops would have been difficult catches for the receivers. I could have put the ball a little more accurate on them. But the throw-aways were smart. I didn’t take those sacks that I would take in the past.”

Tight end Brandon Barden, who had two catches for 25 yards including a 14-yarder on the first of three fourth-down conversions, said Smith performed well in a new offensive system.

“I’ve always been a supporter of Larry, and I think he’s done as well as he could do in some of the situations he’s been in,” Barden said. “I think he played well on Saturday and I look forward to seeing how he plays the rest of the season.”

A few other notes from Monday’s press conference:

– Franklin liked the offensive package that featured cornerback Casey Hayward and that it would expand in the coming weeks. He called Hayward’s end-around run of 23 yards one of the biggest plays of the game, as he did Hayward’s interception and 22-yard return.

– Warren Norman has been getting treatment for his sore right knee and was held out of the Elon game after telling Franklin he was “91 percent” healthy last week. Franklin said that Norman could have played but that he wanted to get through the game without using the junior tailback, giving him another week to rest and be ready for Connecticut.

– Vanderbilt students Trent Palmberg and Stephanie Mills were in attendance Monday to discuss their role in helping the Commodores get their first touchdown of the season. They were part of a foursome that placed the high bid at a campus fundraising event put on by fraternity Beta Upsilon Chi (stands for Brothers Under Christ) that Franklin attended back in the spring.

Franklin, who originally agreed to be a judge for a talent show at the fundraiser for the Christian Women’s Job Corps of Middle Tennessee, decided to auction off a prize package that included dinner with him, a tour of the football facilities, a viewing of practice and a sit-in on a film session, some swag and the chance to partake in the pre-game Dore Alley Walk through Vandyville.

“Then Coach Franklin grabs his bag and says, ‘Hey, why don’t you guys come up to my office and we talk plays,’ because another part of the auction was that he said we’d get to call the first play of the game,” Palmberg said.

“So we went up to his office, sat up there for about 20 minutes and he took us through the game plan and explained how everything worked on the team, what the different plays were. He talked to us different situations. He divvied out some team apparel that I’m wearing right now and was willing to take pictures with us.

“We selected a good play that we liked up there … we’re no football experts. We’re just big football fans. So we picked out a play that would give Larry some confidence that had an out route to the right and gave him a few receivers to hit, either short or maybe a little longer. That was actually a play they ran on second down because the first down just had a different situation and we said, ‘All right, Coach, we’ll leave it up to you to make a better decision than us.’

“And so when they got into the touchdown territory, there was a similar situation and we saw that he called a very similar play to that, and it went in for a touchdown. We were ecstatic.”

In case you’re interested, the second play of the game resulted in an incompletion to Jonathan Krause when Smith’s throw sailed high as he rolled out to the right … but it was open.